There are many ways of writing ads. Simply stating that your product is good. Giving evidence that it’s good. Or making people feel that it’s good. Ai could spit out versions of the first two pretty quickly, but it’d struggle on the third. The third requires a bit of psychology, observation and understanding of what makes people tick. Bill Bernbach put it this way “It took millions of years for man’s instincts to develop. It will take millions more forRead more
Posts tagged: #Chiat/Day
ANOTHER POST ON POSTERS.
Clever-clogs, San Franciscan adman Howard Gossage once said that advertising had a responsibility to society not to pollute our environment. Particularly outdoor, as everybody was exposed to it. I’m sure everyone in marketing at the time nodded sagely in agreement, then got back to polluting. After all, job one is shifting product. Creating a more pleasant trip to the shops is an indulgence. Isn’t it? If you believe dull, ugly ads shift more product. Do they get you to buy?Read more
COPY SAFARI THOUGHTS.
Last week, Vikki Ross asked me to do one of her Copy Safaris. A stroll around London judging advertising in the wild, then posting on Twitter. One of the good things is that you don’t pick and choose, you comment on everything; the good, the bad and the fugly. One of the benefits of having to give an instant take, often on the move, is you can’t overthink it, you react more like the rest of the people on theRead more
PODCAST: Adrian Lyne
In 1969, fourteen years after the first commercial aired in Britain, colour arrived. The bar was raised. Ambitious ads could now go beyond the over-lit, creakily acted black & white output from adland. Ads, well, the good ones, started to look like they could’ve been snipped from a movie. But they were still pretty formal. A couple of years later, a young producer decides he wants to stop producing ads and start shooting them Rather than chase the formal perfection,Read more
PODCAST: Cabell Harris
Ad agencies often claim to have no set style, that each campaign is created from scratch, bespoke for every client. It may be true for the mediocre ones, but not the great ones. Nobody used to confuse the work of AMV, BBH and GGT. The same with Wieden, Chiat and Fallon. Today, stick me in front of a tv and I’d fancy my chances at picking the Droga5. Or spotting the Uncommon on a tube platform. Because although ad agenciesRead more
PODCAST: RICK SITTIG
Many of you won’t recognise that name. You won’t find it attached to tweets his latest ‘hot’ campaign, or next to a picture of his latest lunch; he doesn’t do social media. You won’t find his agency in any new business tables; they only handle three clients at a time, so tend to have long client relationships. You won’t find their scripts in any production companies; they direct them in-house. This is because, when, 23 years ago, the goal forRead more
PODCAST: Gary Goldsmith
Pick up any New York Art Directors Club Annual from the sixties and you can feel the heat coming off the pages. The Writers are using words previously confined to conversation, the Art Directors are trying to find new ways to present the information (‘Creating new pages’ as Helmut Krone put it.) Then, the seventies. A whole different story; the experimentation and energy appear to have dried up. True, there are still lots of good thoughts and lines, but inRead more
PODCAST: David Kolbusz.
When you start out in your advertising career, Pentel in one hand, MacBook in the other, you seem to be surrounded by good work. Awards books are choc-a-bloc with it. As you go on, year by year, you seem to see less and less. For example, the first D&AD Annual looked at probably had an 80/20 ratio of good to bad. 10 years later those percentages are likely to have flipped. As you move on you become less swayed byRead more
The fewer words you use
the more impact they have. Read more
Hands Up Who’s Heard Of MAD DOGS & ENGLISHMEN?
Remember Alessandro Volta? Douglas Engelbart? What about Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis? Thought not. Even if I asked who invented electric light, the computer mouse and social media, those names are still unlikely to come up. More likely, Thomas Edison, Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg will spring to mind. They didn’t invent those ideas, they either stole from those guys or ‘built on their thinking’.But although now virtually forgotten, their work was crucial, take away their thinking would be likeRead more
THE LOOKY-LIKEY AMALGAM.
I few months back I recorded a podcast with Richard Shotton, one of the brightest people in the business. Whilst preparing I read Richard’s book, The Choice Factory, it’s great, full of fascinating insights and observations on human behaviour and how we respond to marketing. Whilst taking in all this intelligent insight an interesting theory occurred to me; why don’t we just create ads that people like? Granted, it’s no theory of relativity, but it’s odd that it’s barely aRead more
INTERVIEW: Jay Maisel.
I’ve worked with, met, written about and interviewed a lot of photographers over the years. But only one has made me run out and get the same camera he uses. Going through his work again for this interview reminded me that photography needn’t be big, complicated or scientific, it can simply be about the joy of seeing. Photography can be anything; two colours vibrating next to each other, light bouncing off a wall or simply someone doing something unusual. IRead more